Fable III: A Woman Scorned
by Sir Jason Gray
Summary: Born into poverty as the illegitimate daughter of a Hero, Page struggled to survive while keeping her Heroic lineage a secret. When the Prince incites a rebellion, Page is drawn into the action. Along the journey, Page discovers herself, adventure, romance, and danger to become the Hero she was meant to be. PLEASE REVIEW AND FOLLOW!
1. Our Story Begins

**Disclaimer: I don't own Fable, Page, or any of the game-based settings from this story. They are the property of Peter Molyneaux and Lionhead Studios. I don't receive money from this story, so please don't sue me.**

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**Chapter 1: Our Story Begins.**

**Updated 5/12/2014**

"Come get a beautiful gift for the one you love! Chocolates, flowers, we have all sorts!"

"Delicious vegetables, fresh from my garden!"

"Fruit pies! Get your fruit pies here! Hot, fresh fruit pies!"

It was glacial winter morning in Bowerstone Old Quarter's market square. Fresh, crisp white snow lined the cobblestone street, blanketing the shingles of the ramshackle houses lining the market square and crunching under the feet of shopping pedestrians. Salty air wafted over the market from the nearby harbor and carried in hungry seagulls to swoop and dive among the littered streets. Vendors, dressed in clothes as humble as the earth and as colorful as the rainbow, crowded the market with the clamor of their goods for sale.

"Tofu! Apples! Get your healthy selections here!"

"Avoid unwanted pregnancies with a selection of protective condoms!"

"Right out the oven fruit pies!"

The twelve-year-old girl known as Page only had ears and eyes for one seller's wares. Clad in the dusty gray coat common to all chimney sweeps in Bowerstone—which was her occupation, as far as any twelve-year-old girl could have an occupation—Page shivered slightly in the cold morning breeze from the harbor. She brushed the soot off her dingy gray rags and strode to the fruit pie stand.

"Hot, delicious fruit pies! Get your fruit pies here!"

Page cleared her throat. "Excuse me, sir?"

"Won't find none better in all of Bowerstone!"

"Excuse me, sir?"

"Hot fruit pies, straight out the oven!"

"Excuse me, sir?"

"Hot, fresh fruit pies!"

Page tugged at the hem of the vendor's bulky overcoat. He must not have her, as small as she was. Like most orphans who wandered the streets of Bowerstone, working as shoe shiners, chimney sweeps, and window washers, Page wasn't tall or big for her age. Despite the life lessons she had gained from living on the streets, her voice still possessed a childish naïveté. The vendor loomed over six feet tall with a prominent belly, shocking red hair, red mustache, and red beard framing his ruddy face. His voice thundered. Page hated sounding like a child. "Excuse me, sir?"

The man finally glared down. During her glimpses of Bowerstone Market, Page often saw gentlemen glare at her the way the fruit pie vendor did. She wasn't welcome at his stand unless he knew she had the gold requisite to purchase his wares. "What do you want, darky girl?"

"How much for a fruit pie, sir?"

"Five copper pieces, darky."

Page reached into her shabby pocket in her coat and extracted seven copper coins. They were her wages from a week's worth of knocking on the doors of strangers, quietly asking to clean, lugging her own brush and bucket into their homes, and then crawling around in the cramped spaces of their chimneys to clean thoroughly. Page only asked for two copper coins for her work. She had cleaned eight chimneys that week.

Page offered the coins to the man. He huffed in his unrepentant initiation of the offer and snatched Page's coins from her. The vendor counted the coins and shoved them into his pocket.

"Hot, fresh fruit pies! Get your fruit pies here!"

She shivered in the cold, salty harbor breeze. A fruit pie would warm up her hands, her stomach, and probably nourish her for the week ahead. The coat was shabby and too threadbare for much in the way of protection.

"Fruit pies, get your fruit pies here!"

Page pulled on the hem of the man's coat again. He glared at her again. "What do you want?"

"Sir, I just paid for a fruit pie. I gave you my money, sir. May I please have one?"

The fat red man frowned. "I told you it cost five coppers, and you didn't have enough."

"I had…I had five coppers."

"You must have counted wrong, darky. You didn't have enough."

"Sir, can I get my coppers back? Please, sir, it's all I had."

"Go away."

"But…."

"Go away, darky girl."

"Sir…."

"I said, 'go away.' Or else I'll call one of the town guards to throw you into jail for harassing me."

Page's dark blue eyes welled with tears. She didn't blink, because that would've made the tears tumble down. She bit her lower lip to keep from crying. "Sir, please…"

"This is your last chance, darky. Go away."

She sniffled and walked down the snow-covered cobblestones with her grimy hands in grimy fingerless gloves shoved into empty, grimier pockets. When she was out of the fruit pie vendor's sight, Page allowed a few tears to fall from her eyes. She quickly wiped them away as she wandered down alleys.

How was she to get more money? At twelve—at least, by her reckoning of her own age—Page was taller and less adorable than the younger girls who begged for money on the side of the cobblestoned streets. She passed a few of them, even in the alleys. They ignored her while stretching out hands just as wretched as hers at any passing gentleman or merchant. Older girls stood on the side of the streets in outfits that would shame respectable women—a profession Page could hardly consider. And the older women usually begged with one or two of their children at their side.

Page hadn't eaten for four days. There was no telling when she would eat again. Feeling utterly defeated, the dark-skinned girl wandered down an alley, sat in a puddle of icy melt water, and sobbed into her hands.

If she sat in that position all day, she could freeze to death. Page had seen it happen to a girl before. Frozen or starved to death, every girl like her had to end some way.

"There is no use in crying, Page. It will not satisfy your hunger. In fact, tears will only increase it."

Page locked up through her dark blue eyes at the elderly woman who had spoken. The girl hadn't seen the woman arrive. From where she sat on the ground, Page could make out the woman's milky white blind eyes, slender nose, and gray locks of silky hair beneath the woman's red-and-white humble cotton hood. In one outstretched hand, the woman offered Page a shiny red apple.

"It's fresh. And you need your strength."

The girl didn't need further prompting. She snatched up the apple and bit into it. It was juicy, delicious, and undeniably the best taste she had had all week long. Page had heard the tale of a beautiful princess with snow white skin who bit into a poisoned apple and fell into a sleep that could only be broken by a prince's kiss. As she was neither fair-skinned nor a princess, Page felt she was safe.

While she ate her apple, the woman talked to her. "Today is a very important day for you, Page. It's the first day of your journey to fulfill your destiny."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You have lived in ignorance of the road that lies ahead of you for too long. The way forward requires bold actions. You should not be afraid to take what is rightfully yours—a fruit pie, for instance."

"From the fruit pie seller?" Page asked incredulously. She tossed aside the stem of the apple and spat out its seeds. She had heard that if she ate the seeds, they would grow into a tree inside her. "Lady, who are you?"

"My name is Theresa. I'm certain we will soon become very good acquaintances."

"What's that supposed to mean? Are you going to take me home with you?" That happened, sometimes, to lucky and younger children. A couple would see one of the young begging boys or girls—five or six years old, at the most—take them by the hand, and a few weeks later, when Page saw them again, they were well-dressed, clean, well-fed. And above all else, they were happy. Page was already twelve.

"No, I cannot do that."

"Have you lived on the streets of Bowerstone?"

"I have lived in poverty before, at a time before you were even thought of. And I was resourceful. In order to survive as I have, you must be."

"Then you know it is impossible to steal from a food vendor, unless I wish to die."

"Or unless you are meant for something greater."

"What else could I be meant for?" the girl asked with a quizzical expression drawn on her face.

Theresa smiled and scanned with her blind eyes the house to her right and behind Page. It was an old house—as were most of the houses in the district, hence its name—and was constructed of mortared bricks on the ground floor with a second floor of wood. A gutter trailed along the second floor roof and ran down the side of the house in a rusty metal rainspout. It used to be a grand house, but salt and time had aged the wood and worn the bricks.

"Have you ever climbed a house before?"

"No."

"Perhaps you should try."

Page stared up the rainspout's length. Her blue eyes studied the gutter. "That doesn't seem safe at all. Why should I climb the rainspout?"

"Great heights tend to give people greater perspectives. And, if you should have any difficulty while climbing, just think of the wind to push you further."

Theresa walked away and disappeared as quickly as she had come. Page watched her depart and stared back at the gutter. Like a retreating wave in the harbor at high tide, Theresa's departure exposed the thousand grainy sands of the Old Quarter streets conversations. One stood out more than any other.

"Fruit pies for sale here! Come and get your hot, fresh fruit pies!"

The vendor's beckoning reignited Page's anger. She turned her gaze in his direction, and noticed that a rainspout emerged from behind the apple pie vendor like a detached metal tail. Page followed it with her eyes, up the brick  
façade of a house to the gutter framing its perimeter. That gutter nearly touched the gutter of the house next to it, which nearly touched the gutter of the house next it.

And that gutter was very near to the gutter of the house over Page's head.

Page leaped at the rainspout at street level. The sides were too slick. She lost her grip and fell the few inches to the wet, dirty cobbles almost immediately. Page brushed off her filthy clothes. Glaring at the rusty metal spout, she flexed her icy cold fingers. _'Like the wind,'_ she thought.

She took four steps backward and rubbed her cold hands together. When she ran at the rainspout a second time, Page actually lifted off the ground and seemed to hover just so slightly. Page clung to the spout as though she would die. She was no further off the ground than she was tall.

_'Like the wind,'_ Page thought. She reached up with her left hand and a grunt, and began to scale the rainspout. In the Alban countryside, a girl of eight might climb trees without any difficulty at all. In Bowerstone, climbing skills were as difficult to perfect as hog-raising. Page had never climbed anything higher than a stair before with her bare hands, but she took to scaling the rainspout with natural affinity. She leaped over gaps in the rainspout without a hint of worrying. It was as though the air didn't want to let Paige fall.

When Page reached the second-floor roof of the house, she faced a greater challenge—going from one rooftop to the next in order to reach the fruit pie seller. She backed to the opposite side of the roof, feeling it creaking beneath her footsteps. _'Like the wind.'_ Page ran and leaped just before hitting the void between the houses. As light as cloth in the breeze, she floated across the void between houses. Her footsteps landed lightly.

_'Like the wind.'_ Almost without hesitation, Page ran and leaped from that roof to the next. She landed as lightly on the third roof as she had on the second. Page ran toward the next roof and leaped again. She hadn't sweat, and she wasn't out of breath. It was more exertion than Page had accomplished before.

"Fruit pies; none better in all of Bowerstone!"

The vendor's call reminded Page why she had climbed on the rooftop to begin with. He stood in the market below her, hawking his wares. Without a moment's hesitation, Page scaled her way down the rainspout, crept off it, and hid behind the vendor's back. He was selling finally to another customer.

"Why, yes, madam, these fruit pies are made from the finest whole barley dough, goat milk, and apples."

"Yes," the doughy, middle-aged female customer responded, "but is it made with any nuts of any kind?"

"Er, no, madam, they are not. Are you choosing to buy some now?"

While he was distracted, Page lunged for a fruit pie. Before she could withdraw her hand, the fruit pie vendor seized her wrist in his pudgy hand. "So, you're back to pilfer from me, girl thief? I'll have you taken to the town jail as soon as any boy, count on that."

The fruit pie seller had a firm grip on Page's shoulder as he dragged her through the dirty, snow-covered streets of Bowerstone. "Just you wait until the town guard hears about what you've done. Stealing, _and_ from a private person in broad daylight. Hah! It's the stocks for you, little sneak!"

"Let me go! Let me go, now!" Page yelled. She slapped and clawed at the vendor's hand. His grip slipped to her slim arm, and Page renewed her struggle with more vigor. Then she recalled Theresa's words as though the old blind woman were speaking directly in her ear. _'"Like the wind."'_

Suddenly Page was freed.

The fruit pie seller pushed through the crowd a few feet ahead of her and turned back, as if to speak more of his venomous threats to her—and saw that his hand was empty. He glanced around and made eye contact with Page. "Hey!"

Page ran away. "Hey, you come back here! Come back here, you little thief! Come back here!"

Page darted through the thick crowd in the street, occasionally bumping into people meandering through the streets of Old Quarter. _'There are so many people out here today, more than usual. If I were a pickpocket, I could clean up.'_

"Thief! Thief!" the vendor yelled from somewhere behind her.

_'If I can just make it to Industrial or to the old quay, I can lose him.'_ Every time she glanced back though, he was only a few steps behind her, shoving his way through the crowd without her agility. _'I've got to move faster! What did Theresa say? Oh, yeah: Like the wind.'_

Suddenly Page was far ahead of the fruit pie vendor by a few dozen steps rather than a few steps. She glanced back and didn't see the procession of soldiers marching up the main street of Old Quarter from the harbor. The first blast of golden trumpets, from men in starched and pressed dark blue uniforms, caught Page off guard. She stopped in her tracks in the middle of the street—and collided with a tall, elegantly dressed man who had long, graying, dark chocolate hair.

It was the king of Albion, Sparrow Lionheart.


	2. Our Story Continues

**Author's Note: Thanks are in order for Wildfire707 for writing a review on this story, and to innerMalice, Wildfire707, and IKilledKennyYES for adding this story to your list of followed stories. I apologize for the delay in the update. Work and family stuff have consumed a lot of my time lately. I will be working to update more frequently during the summer because I will have more free time in my schedule. **

**Review and follow!**

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**Chapter 2: Our Story Continues**

The procession stopped in its tracks as soon as the King did. Page lay at the King's feet on her back, accidentally blocking his path while she stared up at him in awe. Everything about the king radiated majesty: His long locks of hair, trimmed just enough to be civil, but long enough to be roguish; his purple royal suit; the ermine-trimmed cape down his back; and the knee-high black leather boots polished until Page saw her own reflection as in a mirror. Her fear blocked all other thoughts from Page's mind, except the desire to instantly become invisible.

The King of Albion stared down at Page with one gray eyebrow raised. He bent down and lifted Page off the ground by the two forefingers of his left hand. It was not a gesture of disgust, but Page recognized the king's strength and her own frailty in that moment. "What is this?"

"I'm not a what. I'm a who." The king frowned. _'Maybe I should have kept that to myself.'_

When the ruler of Albion laughed, his entire entourage laughed with him as one unit. Holding Page by a shred of cloth, the King proclaimed loudly enough for his voice to reverberate off the walls of the houses around them, "It's a little girl, but she's as light as a feather! What is your name, Feather girl?"

Page hesitated and glanced around the crowded snow-covered streets. _'I'm talking to the King of Albion! I need to get away!'_

On one side of the street, the fruit pie vendor emerged from the crowd like a volcanic island in a sea of heads. His rage purpled his face, but Page was secure in the grip of King Sparrow. Page glanced to the other side of the street and spotted Theresa standing in the crowd, distinctive in her red and white robe. Her shrouded head slowly shook.

Her meaning was clear. There was no escape for Page, and even an orphaned beggar, such as she was, knew it was unwise to keep the King of Albion waiting for an answer.

"Page, your Highness; my name is Page."

"Page." The king seemed to roll her name around in his mouth, like a morsel he intended to savor. His next words were not proclaimed but kept as quiet between the two of them as a secret. "Well, Page, I too lived on the streets of Bowerstone when I was very young. And when Avo places a street urchin at my feet, I am inclined to show kindness and favor to such people."

In a loud voice, King Sparrow proclaimed, "Let Page be placed in a chariot beside my wife and my sons, and she shall be entertained tonight at Bowerstone Castle as an honored guest!" The crowd cheered and applauded. Page, however, smiled nervously.

_'__What have I gotten into?'_

The carriage ride to Bowerstone Castle was the beginning of Page's experience with finery. She had never seen such finery as King Sparrow lived in, and Page was abject in her sense of awe. The carriage in which the Queen and two Princes rode was ivory silk decorated with gold satin, and was scented with a rich, heady aroma.

Queen Charlotte reminded Page of a swan. Svelte despite her years of childbearing and refined in every aspect of her radiant appearance, Page did not feel worthy of her gaze. Page offered the Queen a shaky "Hello," but Queen Charlotte turned pale beneath her makeup, shivered, and fanned herself with an expensive foreign made fan from the Orient.

_'__The Queen is taken ill with the very sight of me,' _Page thought. _'She won't even look in my direction. I'm beneath her.'_ They didn't talk during the entire carriage ride to Bowerstone Castle. Page didn't even know what to say to the Queen anyway.

The princes were equally reticent. Prince Logan, the heir to the throne of Albion, sat on Page's right in a blue silk jacket and blue silk knee-knocking pants with black leather shoes with gold buckles. He didn't even afford Page a glance. The younger prince, Lark, wore an identical suit, except his was a golden shade of yellow. Although he stared at Page throughout the carriage ride to the Castle, he did not speak.

When they reached Bowerstone Castle, Queen Charlotte and a small squadron of armed guards escorted the princes up the grand staircase. "I'm not feeling well, my love. I will leave you with your charity case," Queen Charlotte called after Sparrow.

"Very well, dear; get your rest. I hope you had a lovely ride with her?"

"'Lovely' isn't the word I would use, Sparrow."

Page was left to feel awed by the high ceilings, stained glass windows, and the army of servants bustling about the castle. _'I don't belong here.'_

"Come along, Page," the king said to her. She obediently followed behind him when King Sparrow turned left down a hallway with green carpet and passed through an elaborate dining room. A chandelier filled with crystals caught the sun and made a flurry of colors dance on the walls. The table and chairs gleamed with freshly applied polish. Prue glanced at the table and caught a glimpse of her own reflection. She looked terrified.

"The moment I saw you, I recognized you for what you are. It shouldn't surprise me," the king said over his right shoulder, "what with you being a street urchin as well. Do you have any other family?"

"No, sir, your Majesty." _'"Street urchin?" If he wasn't the King of Albion, I'd show him a "street urchin" and kick him in his leg!'_

King Sparrow turned right down a hallway and walked through a set of gold handled double doors. Page followed. The hallway led to a high-ceiling two story room with each wall (except the fourth) lined with shelves of books. At the center of the room, an illuminated globe on a mahogany stand stood, with several red velvet armchairs around it. The fourth wall of the room was a two-story polished and cut glass window.

"That's rare. The entire history is dominated by orphans, but there are few only children."

"My mother died giving birth to me. I was raised by my grandmother, and she died two winters ago."

"I am sorry for your loss, but I hope it will make you all the stronger." Sparrow walked confidently to the corner furthest from the door. Page followed and watched the king skim the shelves.

"Let's see…_A History of Heroes, Volume One,_" Sparrow pulled the top of the spine, and Page heard a clicking sound from behind the bookcase. "Then there's _The Greatest Guild Heroes_, _The Hero of Oakvale_, and _Reaver on Reaver._" Each time the king pulled the spine of a book, it triggered a clicking sound in the back of the bookcase. The bookcase rang inwardly and revealed a long stone staircase descending into the bowels of the Castle.

"Follow me, Page."

Page backed from the bookcase, shaking her head. She had heard tales of children, especially little girls, disappearing in the homes of strange men. The king of Albion didn't seem a likely candidate for that kind of behavior, but Page had no experience with those sorts of men. "Where are we going?"

King Sparrow knelt down before her and held Page between his two hands. "Page, I will not hurt you. I promise that. If I'm right about you, your life is about to change for the better. I have to run a test on you. It's the same one I had to undergo. Do you trust me?"

Page nodded. Sparrow took her hand and led her to an underground chamber with a single door marked by four symbols carved in differently colored stones. At the top, there was a red triangle with a single flame glowing within the stone. On the left there was a yellow circle with a sharpshooter's symbol carved into it, but Page only saw three circles with two lines crossing them. The third symbol, to the right side of the door, was a blue square with a sword carved into the stone.

In the center of the door, there was a white stone with the figure of a man carved into it. His head touched the red stone. His left arm and leg touched the yellow stone. His right arm and leg touched the blue stone. "Through here, your destiny awaits," Sparrow said profoundly.

"What do these carvings mean?" Page asked.

"They represent the different disciplines required of a Hero. Blue is the color for Melee; red is the color for the discipline of Will; and yellow is the color of Skill."

"What happens behind the door?"

"Your test awaits."

King Sparrow opened the door, and Page walked through. Strange symbols were carved on the floor. When Page stepped into the center of the room, the symbols glowed red. Their light surrounded Page. "What's happening?" she asked, frightened.

King Sparrow was surprised but quickly closed his mouth. He smiled quietly. "I will explain in a moment, when I am certain of my suspicions. Come with me, Page."

He turned and started up the stairs to the library. When he took the first step, the light around Page faded away. She followed the king to the library. Her arms and legs had a strange tingling. The bookcase behind her swung shut, and Page waited a few heartbeats. She felt different somehow, altered. "What happened to me?"

Sparrow rubbed his bearded chin between the thumb and index finger of his left hand in thought. He motioned to one of the armchairs, and Page sat down. "The test you just endured was a measure of your Heroic potential. In recent generations, Heroes such as I am have been from the mixing of humans with Heroes. There is, in particular, a prophecy I read about a Hero to come after me."

The king went to a bookcase and removed a heavy, red bound tome with yellowed and dusty parchment pages. He set it on the table. "According to the prophecy…"

Before Sparrow finished his story, the doors of the library burst open and a guard in his crisp uniform rushed into the room. "Your Majesty!" He dropped to one knee, lowered his head, and stood up rapidly. "Queen Charlotte has taken ill. The physicians request you come at once!"

King Sparrow sprinted from the room, followed closely by the guard. Page approached the large book he had placed on the table, but she could not read the title. Her education had been limited to listening, sneaking, stealing, and seeing without being seen.

So she followed the guard, using the education she did have. _'How does anyone do this? All these passages and stairs, unless you know where you're going, you could get lost. Lucky me, I know how to move like the wind.'_ The guard led Page to a third floor corridor, where there were a set of double doors four times as tall as she was. The doors were ajar, and she saw people moving around within the room. _'Maybe that's where the king went?'_

Page approached the doors, and slipped into the room. Like every other room of the Castle, it was arranged richly. Its centerpiece was a magnificent four poster bed with velvet curtains drawn open. Everyone in the room stood around the bed because that was where the royal family had gathered.

King Sparrow sat on the side of the bed, holding his wife's right hand. Prince Logan lay across his mother's stomach, calling, "Mum! Mum!" Prince Lark knelt by her knees.

And Queen Charlotte lay on the bed, sweating profusely and gasping for air.

Her beautiful face had become ghastly pale. Her long brown hair was actually limp and lifeless, when it wasn't pinned up elaborately. King Sparrow rubbed Charlott'es hand and murmured words Page couldn't hear. She cowered by the door. _'If I just stand here in the shadows, no one will notice me.'_

When the Queen's eyes turned glassy and King Sparrow collapsed across the Queen's body, Page knew the queen had passed. In imitation of his older brother, Prince Lark crawled up to his mother's vacant face and cried loudly, "Mum! Mum!" Several courtiers dissolved into sobs. A serving girl collapsed to her knees bawling. A nobleman swooned and fainted on the floor.

Only Prince Logan noticed Page was there. He cut his dark eyes directly at her, with a look so cold, Page shivered. It was an expression of anger and vengeance. No one in the room stopped the prince as he stormed over to Page, and pushed her from the late queen's bedroom into the hallway. In the darkness of the hall, his eyes and his teeth seemed to glow with rage.

"You! She's dead because of you!"

"I-I-I didn't do…" Page stammered. Logan, who stood taller than her by at least two feet, slapped Page across her face.

"You killed my mother. She wasn't sick until she met you. You killed her, you street urchin! And I promise you, upon her cooling, dead body, that I will make every day of your life as miserable as you have made mine," Logan warned in a deadly cold voice. "That is my promise to you."


	3. Out of the Frying Pan

**Author's Note: Shout-outs to nicoleereeds and MagicMinstrel for adding this story to their list of followings, and thanks to almostinsane, IKilledKennyYES, and nicoleereeds for your reviews on the previous chapter. I apologize for the slow update, and am working on remedying the situation with another chapter this weekend, I hope. My plan is to update this story with a new chapter every week, since I am concluding a couple of other stories this month. **

**The floor plan for Bowerstone Castle is roughly based off the floor plan from Fable III.**

**Continue to review and follow; it encourages me to write at a faster pace!**

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**Chapter Three: Out of the Frying Pan…**

**_One year later…_**

"Page! Page, get up! Get up now, you good-for-nothing lazy layabout girl!"

A loud, solid thwack on her head jolted Page into full consciousness from a restful night's dream. She resentfully opened her eyes. Dust made her eyes water when Page looked up at Chef Jacques, who was a monster where the household staff were concerned. He loomed over her. Despite his profession, Chef Jacques was a slim man with a small red goatee, a thick red mustache, and thinning red hair atop his head. Unfortunately, his face was as red as his hair at the moment. It was never a good sign.

"Page, you useless little girl, there is no fire in the kitchen! If there is no fire, how am I supposed to cook? Get to work!" Chef Jacques groused in in his fake Francian dialect. Page had overheard him flirting with the gardeners in flawless Alban. His dialect annoyed her, just like being awake every day at five a.m. annoyed Page.

"I was having the nicest dream."

Page swung her feet to the floor of the kitchen servants' closet and climbed out of the shelf on which she slept. The servants all lived in a hovel behind the highest hedge in the castle's garden, and living quarters were arranged by the hierarchy of the staff. The tutors and cooks, including Chef Jacques, lived on the second story of the house. Maids and butlers lived on the ground floor. Stoveboys and the scullery maid inhabited the dark, dusty basement closets. Privacy was a luxury, and space was a privilege.

"What do I care about a dream, useless child? Get to the kitchen now!"

"I dreamed I was a princess, and you were homeless," Page mumbled defiantly.

Chef Jacques struck Page over her head again. Her hands tingled like she had suddenly regained blood flow. "Get up, get up, before I report you to ze Prince!"

Page dragged her feet to a corner of the basement to wash her body, but Chef Jacques seized her shoulder. "No, no, I need ze fire in ze kitchen _now_. You will light it _now_!" He steered her toward the basement doors.

_'__I guess it's a good thing I slept in my clothes from yesterday. Otherwise….'_ She shuddered from the cold air of the early morning when Chef Jacques opened the door.

"Out ze door with you, go now!" Chef Jacques swatted Page's rear end with the back of his left hand. Page flinched and stopped in her tracks.

Sparks had appeared from her fingertips.

_'__King Sparrow had said this would happen, one day! Fire is supposed to be the first—or one of the first—Will abilities he said I would develop. Where's there's sparks, a fire can start. Even __**I**__ know that! I can't wait to tell him!'_

Thrilled at the thought, Page raced through the garden hedge into the Castle's kitchen. Fudge, the hallboy, had brought in the firewood and a lively blaze already roared in the kitchen's ovens. When he saw Page's sprinting form, Fudge grinned and sat down the bucket of firewood in his hands. A tall boy of an age with Prince Logan, Fudge was not unattractive.

"Good morning, P—Hey, where're you going?"

"Upstairs! I'll be back in a moment! Thanks for lighting the fires for me!"

She sprinted up the stairs to the main dining hall and paid no heed to the guards who gawked at her boldness. _'I've worked in these kitchens an entire year, and if they don't know who I am by now, then they can stuff a sock in their eyes!'_

Page climbed to the second floor and cut to the left hallway. It was lined with empty suits of armor and courtiers wrapped in fine clothes and fragrant scents. She avoided them all and continued her sprint to the grand doors with two crowns in gold inlay at the end of the hall. A guard stood in front of the doors. He lowered the rapier over the handle of the door before Page reached for it.

"No one is allowed in the King's chambers while the Prince is in there."

"But I have work to do downstairs, and I need to speak to the king first!"

"No one is allowed in, by the orders of Prince Logan."

The grand wooden doors opened suddenly. Prince Logan stood in the doorway in one of King Sparrow's elaborate suits and wearing the king's crown. _'That suit looks awfully big on King Logan. And the crown looks heavy on him.'_

'

Logan turned paler than usual when he spied Page. "What is _she_ doing here near my father's chambers?" Without waiting for the guard to answer, Logan turned to Page. "I told you to remain in the kitchens with the other riffraff. My father is infirm and my mother is _dead_ because of you!" Several noblewomen winced from the thunder in the Prince's voice. "If it didn't cause him to get so unbearably upset without you here, I would send you back to the streets where you belong! Get out of my sight, all of you!"

To the guard he added, "Drag her away if you have to, but keep this trash away from my father's chambers."

"Well," said the guard, "you heard his Highness, I—Hey! Where are you going?"

Page ran along the second floor corridor, climbed the stairs, and ran like the wind from the guard's sight along the deserted third floor. _'There has to be somewhere up here with access to the king's room. Didn't the Queen have a secret passage directly to the King's chambers? That's what all the servants say in the kitchens.'_

"You aren't allowed up here!" yelled one of the guards patrolling the floor.

"Come back here!" shouted another.

_'__These guards aren't going to leave me alone. It doesn't help to run like the wind if they see where I'm going. I'll have to hide. But where?'_

Page dashed down the corridor at a speed that shouldn't have been possible for her small body or her age. Before reaching the late Queen's chambers—which had been empty for the year since her untimely death—she went down a short hallway filled with suits of armor. The hallway ended with no window or door. And the guards were only a few paces behind her.

"Psst!" Page barely heard the whisper, but she saw the brown-haired boy peeking from behind a suit of armor on her left. It was Prince Lark. He beckoned her to approach with a wave of her hand. "Hide behind one of these suits of armor. They'll never find you!"

She followed the prince's advice. The guards reached the opening of the hallway and stared at all the suits of armor filling it.

"Blimey! I know we saw her go down this hall!"

"Maybe she hid down another hall?"

"Let's go check."

Page emerged from her hiding place. Prince Lark did too. They were of an age, but Page was still taller. "Thank you, your Highness." She curtseyed as best as she could in her dingy scullery maid dress.

The prince laughed but covered his mouth. His hazel-blue eyes shone with mirth. "You're welcome. Hey, you're Page, aren't you?"

"Yes, your Highness, I am." Page bowed deferentially, as all servants in the castle did when the royals asked a question.

"You don't have to call me 'Highness.' Just call me Lark."

"As you wish, Prince Lark."

"Where are you going?"

"I-I wanted to see his royal Majesty, the king. Prince Logan forbade anyone to enter the king's chambers, until he leaves."

"So if you're not supposed to see him, that would mean you're about to disobey my brother's orders." Page nervously shifted her weight from one foot to the other. "Mother had a secret passage from her chambers to Father's. It connects their closets, and should allow you to see Father without Logan knowing."

Page followed Lark from the hall of armor to the doors of Queen Charlotte's chambers. _'This feels wrong. The queen has been dead for an entire year. I feel like a criminal, going into her chambers like this.'_

Lark opened the door and let Page in. Inside, the air was stale, dry, and thick with dust. Page turned her head from the Queen's bed and the armchairs that surrounded it. _'I bet her ghost is still in here somewhere. This is scary, being here by myself.'_ Page scampered across the room to the enormous closet as quickly as she could, and shoved her way through the dresses, coats, and furs filling the closet.

When she heard footsteps behind her in the closet, Page froze in place. _'It's the guards! I'm going to end up in the Bowerstone dungeons!'_

A head of brown hair poked through the dresses behind her. "You forgot to close the door. Father always closed the door when he used to visit."

"Thank you, Lark."

"How did you move so fast?"

"I ran, that's all."

"Oh. Okay. I'm coming with you. If Logan doesn't like you being in Father's room, he'll have to go through me." Lark defiantly stuck out his chin.

Page laughed. "Come on; let's go to the King's chamber."

Lark stood on tiptoes to press a knob at the back of the closet. A short, narrow staircase led down to another door without hinges. When Page pressed on the door, it swung out directly into the king's chamber. Page walked through, followed by Lark.

"It stinks in here!" Page yelped, covering her mouth with her right sleeve. Then she remembered that Lark was with her. She clapped her hands to her mouth in horror. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean…"

Lark shrugged his slim shoulders. "Father's room always smells like that."

Page said nothing. She looked around the room. None of the curtains were drawn open, and there were no candles lit, so the room was bathed in a light gray lighting from the little light allowed through by the curtains. King Sparrow, the greatest Hero of Albion, lay on his ostentatiously lavish bed in the center of the room with the curtains of his four-poster bed drawn open.

King Sparrow's breath came in short, shallow rasps that caused Page to shiver with fear. His hair, once a rich brown color streaked with the silver of his advancing age, had turned entirely silver and brittle. It pooled around Sparrow's head. There were wrinkles on the king's face that had not existed before. A gold cup of wine had spilled on the floor from his aged and spotted hands.

_'__He didn't always look like that. He's just been sick this last year, ever since Queen Charlotte's funeral. But he'll get better soon. I remember when they said he'd gotten sick and collapsed. They thought he was going to die. But he lived. King Sparrow lived and he can keep on living. I know he will. He's a Hero. Heroes don't die.'_

Page carefully tiptoed to the bed, as though the King would wake up and shout for the guards if she made too much noise. She sat in one of the armchairs at the side of the King's bed. _'I don't belong here. I'm too plain and poor to be here.' _Page tried to smooth back her ebony locks and her skirt, and she tried to smile her most winning smile possible.

"H-Hello, your Majesty, I a-apologize for taking so long to come see you. Did you know I was down in the kitchen?" A river of glistening drool poured from Sparrow's desiccated mouth. "It's been about an entire year since you were ill. Prince Logan's been running the kingdom. He sent me to the kitchens."

She stifled a sob. "I shouldn't even be up here. He's so cruel to me…."

King Sparrow's breath suddenly turned into a desperate series of gasps. "King Sparrow?" His body seized. His hands clenched and his jaw clenched, which made the muscles in his neck stand out frighteningly. "King Sparrow, are you alright?" His eyes went wide as he thrashed about on the bed. Page stood up and backed away from the bed. "Don't die, King Sparrow, please don't die!"

His body stopped moving and went rigid. Sparrow's mouth twisted into an imitation of a smile. "King Sparrow?" Page took two steps toward the bed. "King Sparrow?" His chest wasn't rising or falling. His eyes did not blink.

"Avo, help me! The king is dead!"

The massive doors behind Page unlocked, and red-coated guards rushed into the room. Their swords were drawn. Page backed away, terrified. She froze in place and watched as the guards formed a double line with their swords all pointed at her. Prince Logan followed the guards into the room, still wearing King Sparrow's suit and gold crown. He had even added an ermine cape.

"What are you doing here, you street trash?"

"I…."

He stormed across the room and struck Page across her face with the back of his right hand. Page clutched her face but did not fall. Her hand was glowing hot. _'Oh no, not now!'_

Logan glared at her. "I asked you…" Then he glimpsed at the bed behind her. Logan's face turned pale and he gasped in shock. He collapsed to the floor and crawled on his hands and knees to the bed. "Papa? Papa, are you…" Page watched as he touched the king's nearest cold, rigid hand. Logan immediately dissolved into tears. "Papa, no! No, Papa, don't leave me!"

_'__He was so nice to me too, Logan. This isn't fair. He didn't deserve to die. This isn't right.'_

"I…I…" Page swallowed but watched Prince Logan's emotional turbulence at the king's side. "Prince Logan, your Highness…"

Suddenly, Logan stood up and turned to her. "You did this." Logan turned his face to Page. It was as though an icy spear had pierced her heart. "You killed my father."

"Your Highness, no! I did not!"

Logan stalked closer to Page, and she backed up. _'It's so cold, I can't even breathe. Did everything turn cold when the king died?'_ "You were the only one in this room. Who else could have done it? Who else could have killed my father, my king?"

"I-I didn't…"

He stooped down and picked up the gold cup from the floor. Glancing at the guards, Logan sniffed the cup and sneered at Page. "And here's the evidence. Obviously, you gave him poison. Did you think you were giving him a gracious death?"

_'__I'm so cold. I can't even move.'_

Logan seized Page by her throat and she trembled even more from both fear and the cold in the room. "You killed my father. And as the new king of Albion," his grip on her throat tightened until her blood pounded in her ears, "I order your execution."

"No!" Flames suddenly erupted from Page's hands, licking at the carpet beneath her feet. Logan's eyes grew wide, and he backed away from her. The guards backed away too. Flames consumed Page's hands. When she turned right and left, fire leaped from Page's fingertips to ignite the carpeted floor, the armchairs around the king's bed, and the four-poster bed of the king.

_'__What have I become?'_ The entire room was catching fire, pushing Logan and his guards back toward the doors. As he ran from the room, Logan looked back at Page. The fire reflected in his eyes and turned him into something demonically supernatural.

"You might have saved yourself now, Page, but I will kill you! I will kill you for taking my family away from me! And I will watch you die, you pitiful street urchin!"

Page glanced around the room. Fire had cut off her exit through the door, but there was a stained glass window on the other side of the king's bed. Tapestries and curtains on either side of the window were also on fire. Yet the floor in front of the window hadn't caught yet. There was still a chance.

"You have to catch me first!" Page ran like the wind, flames trailing behind her from her hands. She pointed them at the window and the glass exploded outward. _'I can't believe I'm doing this!'_ Time seemed to slow down for Page, as she leaped through the opening and into the cold winter night outside.


	4. Thou Doth Protest Much

**Author's Note: Thanks to Anabel23 for adding this story to a list of your followed stories, and thanks also to Katuraiie for adding this story to your list of favorite stories, and thanks to almostinsane, my awesome community collaborator, for following this story as well. Check out our community, Best Supporting Character Stories, for superlatively great Fable stories centered around supporting characters such as Page, Ben, and even Whisper from the first Fable!**

**I apologize for waiting so long to update, but I had to finish a couple of other stories first. I should be able to resume with weekly updates as of this weekend. So be sure to review and follow and favorite!**

* * *

**Chapter Four: Thou Doth Protest Much**

_Four Years Later…_

"King Logan is the bane of Albion! He extorts extraordinary taxes from the people, yet our people receives NONE of his extorted profits!"

"We starve on the streets while he eats fine bread and drinks the best wine behind the castle walls!"

"My children go hungry while he entertains dozens of nobles in a garden party!"

"Down with Logan!"

"Yeah, down with Logan!"

The crowd exploded into raucous cheering. Page peeked over the edge of the roof on which she slept and almost yawned from boredom. _'Another gathering of unhappy factory workers, to protest King Logan's taxes? It won't be long before the town guards come and arrest them all for suspicion of treason or for illegal gathering or some other nonsense.'_

Still, Page watched. The man at the front of the crowd, the obvious leader of the gathering, motioned with his hands for the crowd to fall silent. "Our people are crushed beneath the burden of his tyranny. It is high time that we, the people of Albion, take back our power from this tyrant!"

"Yeah!"

"No taxes without consent!"

"Better wages for the poor!"

Page shook her head with mildly concealed resentment. Since her escape from Bowerstone Castle, Page had grown taller and leaner. Her skills as a thief were sharper than they were when she was a mere child: she could see and hear better; she could sneak behind and around others more stealthily; and she blended into crowds more easily, despite her Samarkander skin. Since her escape from Bowerstone Castle following King Sparrow's death, she had lived a hard life among the people of Bowerstone Quarter and Bowerstone Industrial. Sometimes she slept in alleys; sometimes she slept in cemeteries. The year in the kitchen of the Castle had been luxury by comparison.

She shivered at the shouts of the crowd. Page's stomach rumbled. _'He's a convincing rebellion leader, but he's not promising food. It's time I find something to eat.'_

Page stood up, brushed off her shabby clothes, and stepped back to the two chimneys atop the roof. Then she ran to the edge and leaped through the air. She landed flawlessly on top of the roof of the next house and slid down the icy rain gutter to land at the back of the protestors. A factory manager in a blue buttoned-up shirt and brown overalls pushed past her and shoved his way through the crowd to the platform on which the speaker stood.

"It is high time that we…"

The factory manager mounted the stage and shoved the speaker—a large, ruddy faced man with wavy dark brown hair—aside. The crowd immediately began booing. "Get back to work, the whole lot of you! Lazy disgruntled filth! The King doesn't care about your wellbeing or your protests!"

"We won't take orders from the likes of you much longer!" a woman yelled.

"Yeah! The people's day is coming, and when it comes, people like you will be on the outs, Mister Brown!"

Mister Brown put his hands on his hips and sneered. "Well lucky for me that day isn't today! Now, get back to work. Or I'll report you to Reaver, and he'll deal with you!"

The crowd began to disperse. Page shook her head. _'I'm tired of people like them. They always complain but they never __**do**__ anything. It's time somebody did something. If only there was a way to tell someone to do something, but without making it obvious. They wouldn't listen to me. I'm just a sixteen-year-old girl.'_

Page slipped into the crowd and matched its pace. The crowd passed a vendor's gift shop stall, offering boxes of chocolates, glass bottles of exotic perfumes from foreign lands, and even bouquets of roses. Page could easily grab a box of chocolates while walking without the vendor noticing. She did exactly that. As she snacked on her pilfered chocolates, Page listened to the conversations of the people around her.

"'I'll report you to Reaver?'" The man ahead of Page scoffed. "Of course he would. Brown has been a sellout and a swine since he got promoted to factory manager. Since when did he stop working with the common man?"

"Better to deal with Brown than to deal with that upstart noble, Commodore What's-His-Face? He's always snooping around the factory, asking all sorts of upstart questions. I'm surprised Reaver doesn't kill the git."

"Those Millfields stuffed shirts, they're going to need more of us soon!" another protestor exclaimed. "That land out there isn't what it used to be. It's getting smaller all the time. They need factories and mines. And we're the ones to give it to 'em, if they start to treat us better. Not like animals."

"That's what we're going to talk to the King about today," said the brown-haired man who had been on the stage earlier. "We're going to stage a peaceful protest and convince the King to…"

"Convince him? This will not be a peaceful talk, Lazlo!" a woman with curly blonde hair and a sharp voice snapped. "We are going to storm the castle, take possession of His Highness the Prince, and let _him_ rule Albion with us as his benevolent advisers."

"Do you really plan to storm the Bowerstone Castle _and_ take possession of Prince Lark, despite all those troublesome town guards that just might get in the way, Lucy?"

"It's a good deal better than _your _plan, Lazlo!"

Page suddenly realized that the protestors were approaching the Bowerstone Castle region of the city. They had already crossed into Bowerstone Market, which was a much more affluent area of the city than Bowestone Quarter or Bowerstone Industrial. The stores were more upscale, housed in actual buildings with square cut glass windows and displays and painted wooden doors. Houses had stairs with wrought-iron railings and carved knockers on the doors. Guards congregated around them as the protestors walked the road along the Bower River.

_'__We're going to encounter Logan? What if Logan sees me? What if he recognizes me?'_

Using her sneaking skills, Page deftly removed the scarf from the neck of one of the women ahead of her. She draped it over he head so that the scarf shrouded her eyes and concealed her grime-encrusted dreadlocks. The guards posted at the Castle's wrought-iron gates scowled at Page the same as any other protestor. _'Either my disguise works, or they really don't recognize me after all these years.'_

Stone crenellations over the gate made the castle walls dark and forbidding, like a death knell from a church bell. The castle's front courtyard was vastly different from what Page remembered. When King Sparrow was alive, the front courtyard had flowering bushes, colorful and delicate tea roses, and merrily singing birds, even in the midst of winter. Now the courtyard had an unearthly gray pallor over it, like a storm had descended upon the bare bushes and frozen flowers. Albion was on the verge of spring, yet icicles clung to the eaves of the castle's walls and crept down the stone walls.

The massive ebony doors were bolted shut. "Skorm! Those doors are too heavy to batter down!" Lazlo exclaimed.

From her position near the front of the crowd, Lucy took out a glass flask of ale and took a swig. Then she hurled the flask at the castle door. "If they won't open the door for the people, then we will burn them out! Ha!"

"You can't be serious!"

A town guard approached Lucy. "Ma'am, we can't be allowing you to start any fires on the castle doors."

"You're not under any orders to stop me, are you?" Lucy sneered in his face.

"Seeing as my commanding officer is currently indisposed inside the castle, I would have to say, no ma'am."

Page shook her head as the guard stepped away from Lucy. _'And I always thought the town guards in Industrial were lazy and incompetent.'_

"Who's got a fire? I'll show you just how serious I am!" Lucy scanned the crowd behind her. "A torch, a flame, any sort of fire, I need a light! By Skorm! We're supposed to be a mob, a torch-carrying, rabble –roused mob, and we don't have a bloody torch?"

_'__I could help this woman set fire to King Logan's castle. It would be the sort of thing he deserves for how he's treated all of Albion. And I can throw a fireball just that far. But there's no promise that Lark, who's always been a faithful friend to me, would be safe. What should I do?'_

A rabble built in tempo and volume, until Page felt drowned by the noise. Then, from over her left shoulder, she heard, "Each course seems the wisest to go, until we have lost our way. When we look back, our mistakes become clearer."

Page turned and stared into Theresa's shrouded, blind face. "Theresa! What are you doing here?"

"I came to you when you needed direction."

"I thought you had abandoned me all those years ago. I could have used direction long before now! I could have used food, clean clothes, and even a place to sleep!"

"Do not let your fury consume the best of your faculty of reason. I never abandoned you. I have faithfully been a friend and ally to you. When you needed a hand to guide you five years ago, I was there. Now, I am here again."

"Why now?" Page felt close to crying. _'You're the closest thing I have to a friend or family, Theresa, but you left me.'_

"Although you do not know it, the actions you take today—whether you decide to join with the crowd, or to choose your own course of action—it will have a lasting impact. Do what seems right."


End file.
